r/technology • u/AdSpecialist6598 • Jul 27 '26

Society Professor's invisible prompt trap catches 32 students cheating on their midterm with AI

https://www.techspot.com/news/113243-professor-invisible-prompt-trap-catches-32-students-cheating.html
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u/SinibusUSG Jul 27 '26

Frankly if universities want to actually stop this they have to treat it like the academic dishonesty it is and start expelling people.

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u/BTMarquis Jul 27 '26

This might sound crazy, but they could also have them use a pen and paper to take tests.

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u/[deleted] Jul 27 '26 edited Jul 27 '26

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u/Odexios Jul 27 '26

In order to use AI, you need to know the core ideas of what you're asking, otherwise you're going to blindly trust what the LLMs are saying. You learn to do math manually before using calculators; you learn to spell before using an auto correct tool; and you learn to solve problems without AI before using it.

AI is an amazing tool that's particularly insidious to use, as it gives you answers that sound reasonable, no matter whether they are true. You need to know your stuff to use it well. And a written test cannot really account for AI, as anything that you can come up with in an hour can usually be solved, often better, by an LLM instantly.

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u/[deleted] Jul 27 '26

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u/Odexios Jul 27 '26

Nope. Your AI generated answers will be good, most (or some, depending on the domain) of the time, no matter whether you know the underlying concepts. Crucially, if you don't understand the concepts, you won't be able to understand when what an LLM has generated is good, and when it isn't, which means they you won't be able to use an AI to get reliably good answer.

This is the fundamental skill you need to have when using an AI; and, as you can imagine, designing a test around this is a very hard task.